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The Stargate SG-1 Season Four Minicaps is updating its OS right now. Read the following in the meantime.

Stewart here…

Last time, SG-1 made some really big screw-ups. An ancient Goa’uld, Osiris, was accidentally brought back to life; an assassination attempt on Apophis gave him a bigger army than he had; and if it wasn’t for their future selves, the team would’ve contacted an alien race that would have subjugated the human race. You can’t bat a perfect game all the time, so let’s see how SG-1 does on the field this time around…

“Absolute Power”

The “Harsesis” child Daniel located last season has seemed to return a bit older, and the team has found him on Abydos. The child, named Shifu, says he will help teach Daniel what he knows, and that seems to be twisting his personality into a far more cold and calculated person than he was before. He starts planning an expansive Earth defense against the Goa’uld, one that starts bringing doubts to his teammates about what has happened to him. Is this some Goa’uld trick or is something else going on? Bet on the latter in this case.

Daniel Jackson becomes Hank Scorpio.

–So how long did you take to realize Daniel’s conquest of Earth (and vaporizing of Moscow by his satellite defense network) was all a dream made by Shifu to teach him why the Harsesis knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands?

–And that’s the last we’ll see of Shifu, and even Daniel father-in-law, Kasuf, in the show.

–Good thing Hammond warned everyone in the SGC to not shoot at floating, white, ascended Shifu as he left for parts unknown.

–I enjoy how Daniel in his dream just decides to deal with other countries being upset by this secret orbital defense grid by vaporizing Moscow. It’s not even crazed anger, but just irritation that people aren’t playing along.

–O’Neill breaks down philosophy to Hammond: “If I may, Sir. I think what he means is the wick is the center of the candle and ostensibly a great leader, like yourself, is essential to the whole ball of wax. Basically what it means is that, it’s always better to have a big long wick. Right?”

“The Light”

A bizarre gate-related suicide forces a withdrawal of Daniel and a SG team from a planet with an ancient Goa’uld temple. Once Daniel and that team is back, they start having suicidal thoughts, and O’Neill investigates the mystery temple for answers. It seems to be connected to a mysterious light that leaves those who see it addicted to it, which becomes bad news as prolonged time away from the light is starting to kill the people exposed. So, it’s a race against time to find a solution for this light and its fatal aftereffects.

Jeez, did he know there’s a bathroom in the SGC? No need to go across the galaxy to do that!

–The light itself, as we discover, is not the actual cause of the health trouble, but the radiation the temple is putting out. Too bad Loran, the teen stuck in the temple, couldn’t figure it out before his parents went crazy and killed themselves from withdrawal.

–Barber’s run into the opening Stargate bubble is still a pretty nasty way to go.

–So O’Neill and company get to detox on the planet for a few weeks, which hey, not a bad trade-off for light addiction.

–Daniel and I’Neill betted on curling. Curling, everybody.

–Teal’c’s analysis of Loran’s toy gun: “Children of the Tau’ri also seem to enjoy colorful weapons that have no function.”

“Prodigy”

While on a routine seminar, Carter runs into an intelligent if hardheaded Air Force cadet that she’s interested in mentoring. Meanwhile, O’Neill is helping to survey a planet for a possible Earth outpost, when a discovery is made of a firefly-like life form. When one of them is captured, the survey team is laid siege by a massive swarm of these creatures. It’s up to Carter and the cadet, Jennifer, to find a solution to save themselves and the survey team.

“Is this about us shaving that blonde chin hair off you from earlier this season? If so, I’m sorry.”

–Cadet (and smartypants) Jennifer Hailey will return again later next season.

–So the solution with evacuating the base it to zap O’Neill with a zat gun and send him running to the gate, hopefully the current from the zat giving him protection from being killed by those angry firefly creatures? Well, it works.

–The cold open appearance of General Michael E. Ryan, who was the Air Force Chief of Staff in real life when this was filmed, is a nice nod to the show’s balanced handling of the Air Force (and one that would be instrumental in the run of this show).

–Where’s Daniel during all of this, you may ask? Well, besides being with SG-11 at the time, the actor was prepping to direct “Double Jeopardy”, which we’ll talk about in the next installment of the minicaps.

–“Got your hands full with that one, eh George?”

“Entity”

A simple probe to a ancient planet leads to some kind of electrical malfunction in the SGC that takes over the compound’s computers. After the electrical pulse gets a supercomputer built, the team try to find out what’s happened. The problem comes when Carter is taken over by the pulse, and seems to be non-plused about the people who probed the planet it came from. Can they save Carter from her possession, and if they can’t, have to kill her to prevent the pulse from attacking Earth?

What? What did I say?

–Amanda Tapping as Carter does have to spend a act or two possessed, typing her dialogue ala Stephen Hawking, and having to act with what I call perpetually angry face.

–That Carter’s mind is stuck in the mainframe is a surprise after O’Neill is forced to shoot possessed Carter twice with a zat gun (and as you know, twice in succession means death). And she gets downloaded back into her body, and its all good.

–A really vicious bluff O’Neill pulls by threatening to some more MALPs to the planet (the one thing that instigated & injured the machine planet) if Carter isn’t released.

–“I am neither tense, nor anxious. Perhaps concerned.”

–“I’m not getting all my memos!”

NEXT TIME: We end season four of the Stargate SG-1 Minicaps with some highlights and analysis of the season, but before that, the team gets android doppelgängers to help fight a powerful System Lord in “Double Jeopardy”, and SG-1 and the Tok’ra play a deadly gambit to finish Apophis once and for all in the season finale “Exodus”.